ChuChu Rocket — 4Q2014

Cats in rockets trying to kill mice. As well as being weird, the age-old concept of a cat-and-mouse game is surprisingly addictive. In the form of the Dreamcast’s ChuChu Rocket, the concept manages to jump the barrier of weird and branch into the realm of entertaining.

The game of cat-and-mouse is simple: Lead mice to safety in your rocket with well-placed arrows while avoiding cats that other players will send to hunt the mice. The more mice you have left alive at the end, the better. It’s not hard to get started once you have that basic understanding of the game, and it quickly becomes an addicting exercise of frantic fun to keep mice alive.

The fun thing about ChuChu Rocket is the sheer randomness of everything happening on the playing field. There are so many factors that can affect your mice total at the end of a round that it’s impossible to win by talent at moving rodents alone. One must consider the fact that only three arrows can be placed by a character at any given time. With level layout also taken into consideration, the idea that you can be in the lead for five seconds and that be enough to win is a real possibility. Throw in the power-up aspect and constantly changing conditions of the match area and there is a real recipe here for disaster disguised as fun.

It’s a good thing that the game is so fun to play because the graphics and the music sure aren’t going to draw you in by themselves. The game looks like a 1999 game, which isn’t to say it’s horrible, but it isn’t pretty, either. The graphics date themselves mightily, but that’s not really anything to be ashamed of, since ChuChu Rocket doesn’t exactly need to get by on the quality of the scenery. The music is nothing to write home about, and frankly, I played with it turned off for the majority of the time that I’ve owned the game. It really adds nothing to the overall experience and after a short time, it becomes rather irritating. But, like the graphics, it isn’t really what you came here for.

What you’re going to take away from ChuChu Rocket depends on what you’re looking for. In this day and age, 15 years after its original release, you can take a solid party game from this that’s a highly quirky title worthy of many replays or you can see a weird 15-year-old game about cats chasing mice with questionable game conditions attached. Rat infestation issues aside, ChuChu Rocket is a great rat race into nostalgia.